


One Last Dance

by sherlockholmes-notanamateur (loki_godofmischiefandlies)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sherlock Season 3 Spoilers, Sherlock Series 3 Spoilers, seriously though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loki_godofmischiefandlies/pseuds/sherlockholmes-notanamateur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were certain parts of John's stag night Sherlock didn't disclose in his speech. Those parts would be the best and worst memories Sherlock ever had to carry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Dance

**Author's Note:**

> So I know I've been on a hiatus forever, but I've been dealing with way too much personal shit over the past few months and I feel awful for making this my comeback oneshot. Enjoy the pain, I sure did.

The world was spinning when Sherlock opened his eyes. He heard John yell at Lestrade, and the yelling was all it took for Sherlock to bolt upright, but there was something wrong. He touched his lips when the other man walked out of the cell and it was then that he realized.

 

He tasted John.

 

-0-0-0-0-0-

 

It had been like any other stag night for a while. Drinking, jokes…it had been fun. As fun as something could get when it signaled the end of a possibility and the beginning of something new. Something lonely. Sherlock sighed into his beer and shook his heavy head.

 

“Let’s head home mate, I’m pissed.” John slurred, and Sherlock looked up to find himself caught in those smiling blue eyes. John, his best friend, the sturdy, undeniable force that had taken Sherlock’s shaky life and straightened it out. Something hot licked at his insides and he bit his lower lip.

 

“Yeah, home sounds good.”

 

-0-0-0-0-0-

 

It was the last time John would be staying in 221B. Mary had insisted, and for once Sherlock wasn’t complaining. To have John there was extraordinary. Sherlock flopped onto the sofa, still unused to the feeling of being not entirely in control of his body, and John followed, leg pressing against Sherlock’s and a stupid grin on his face.

 

“I’m glad you shaved it off.” Sherlock said, gesturing at John’s upper lip. John scowled playfully for a moment before letting out a giggle.

 

“Well, my fiancée hated it, _you_ hated it…had to go, really.” John said, shrugging. Sherlock chuckled softly and then looked away. Fiancée. The word cut through Sherlock like a dagger. Two days. That was it. John would be married in two days and that would be, as Mrs. Hudson had so wonderfully put it, the end of an era. Sherlock would be alone again. No more cases, no more late nights…it hurt Sherlock more than he could say, and so he clamped his jaw shut and stared at the speaker sitting on his desk. It was just the other day that he had been teaching John how to dance. His fingers tingled at the memory. John had been atrocious, but the feeling of his calloused hand in Sherlock’s made Sherlock ache for something more. Sherlock was never one for wishing, but had he been, he would have wished right then and there that he was teaching John to dance for their wedding, not John’s wedding to Mary. He couldn’t begrudge Mary, not really. The woman was wonderful, she made John smile, and she let John still spend time with Sherlock unlike any of those other imbeciles John had dated in the past. But Mary was also taking John away from him, and so if Sherlock had clung a bit more tightly to John when they danced, neither of them mentioned anything.

 

“What are you thinking of?” John asked, and Sherlock was jolted from his thoughts. A blush crept up the back of his neck and over his sharp cheekbones as he answered automatically.

 

“Dancing.” he said. John chuckled.

 

“You’re good. I was surprised.” John smiled.

 

“You were awful.” Sherlock countered, smirking at his friend.

 

“Got time for one last lesson?” John asked. Sherlock knew that he should say no, he did, but he nodded before he even knew he was doing so. Alcohol; never again.

 

The music started and Sherlock offered his hand to John. Both men were wobbly on their feet, faces flushed with alcohol and embarrassment as John stumbled over his own foot and crashed into Sherlock’s chest.

 

“Careful. Can’t bring you back broken.” Sherlock murmured, staring into John’s eyes. John swallowed heavily when he saw the look. The alcohol had definitely dropped Sherlock’s guard because when John looked into those unusually colored depths he could see an unbearable sadness, a sense of loss unlike anything he had ever seen before.

 

“Sherlock…” John started, but Sherlock shook his head. Sherlock knew that John could see, but to admit what John was seeing would be the wrong move. It was unspoken, but both of them understood. Only Sherlock would be allowed to break tonight.

 

“Please John. Just…just dance.” Sherlock requested, and John couldn’t find it within himself to argue with that fragile voice. He simply wrapped his arm a little bit more tightly around Sherlock and squeezed those deft, violinist’s fingers. Sherlock trembled faintly and before he knew what was happening, tears had sprung up, unwelcome, in his eyes. He blinked rapidly to hide them and buried his face against John’s neck. “I don’t know if I can do it John.” he whispered.

 

“Do what?” John replied, unaware of the torment building on Sherlock’s face and in Sherlock’s heart.

 

“Be your best man.”

 

John stopped and pulled back, examining Sherlock’s face. The pain there tore John apart, and he brushed a tear from Sherlock’s cheek.

 

“Why?” John questioned.

 

“How am I supposed to…to give you away when I….when I wish it was me up there? I’m going to look at her and wish that I was in her place and that’s not fair.” Sherlock explained. In that moment, he hated nothing more than alcohol for stripping him bare and leaving him for John to see. John’s eyes closed sadly, and then he pulled Sherlock back into his chest.

 

“Just pretend. Just for tonight. This…this is ours, yeah?” John whispered, heart aching. Had Sherlock not jumped, John had a feeling it would have actually been theirs. John knew it wasn’t fair to ask that of Sherlock, to tease the man with the illusion of something that would not happen, but it was the only consolation he could give. “Just one dance.” John added. _Our last dance_ was implied.

 

“Okay.” Sherlock replied, voice equally as quiet. Tears rolled down his cheek as the music continued, the song he had written for John and Mary on repeat. When it began again, neither of them said anything because neither of them truly wanted their last dance to end. A song so full of love, but only Sherlock would know that the song was a reflection of his own love for John and not the love he saw between John and Mary. Oh, he saw it, but it burned him almost as badly as the thought of having to watch them get married. But with his eyes closed, he could picture the swish of expensive fabric, imagine that John was dressed in the dashing tuxedo he had picked out the other day, feel the cool press of an unfamiliar wedding band against his own ring finger and hear how it clacked against John’s. Another tremble, and John held him more tightly.

 

“I’m sorry Sherlock. I’m so sorry.” John whispered, and Sherlock let out a soft sob.

 

“I tried so hard John…I did everything to stop him so that I could come back to you and…and I lost you anyway. He won. Moriarty won.” Sherlock gasped, trying to pull away. John held onto him even more tightly and shook his head.

 

“No Sherlock. He didn’t win. You don’t have to let him win.” John whispered, pressing a feather light kiss to Sherlock’s cheek. Sherlock sobbed harder and had it not been for John’s arms around him his legs would have given out then and there. His mind palace was already in ruins, fire licking up the walls and scorching everything that he had labeled as good those past few years.

 

“It’s too late.” Sherlock choked out.

 

“I’m sorry.” John repeated, and with that he pulled Sherlock into a long, slow kiss. Their lips molded together perfectly.  John’s lips were slightly chapped, but just as warm and gentle as Sherlock had imagined them to be. Neither of them broke away when the salty taste of tears slipped along their dancing tongues and neither of them would ever mention how Sherlock shook and sobbed through the only kiss he would ever get to share with John.

 

_Just for tonight._

 

-0-0-0-0-0-

 

The whiskey John had given Sherlock after they finally broke apart did nothing to wipe the taste of John from Sherlock’s mouth, as Sherlock had dedicated the whole moment to memory in a fireproof box buried deep in the basement of his now destroyed Mind Palace. When Sherlock slipped out of the cell after John and Lestrade, his only thought was how much he hated the fact that the memory of his only kiss with John had to be tainted with alcohol and locked away forever.

 

"You alright?" Lestrade asked when Sherlock made it out of the station. Sherlock turned just in time to see John get into a cab, phone pressed to his ear, no doubt easing Mary's anxiety. 

 

"Fine." Sherlock lied, flipping the collar of his coat up. Nobody else could ever know the weight of what was contained in that box, and nobody else would ever be able to help him carry it. Sherlock only wished that he could delete it as he climbed into a cab of his own and bit back a fresh wave of tears. 


End file.
